Let all who are thirsty come

Here is my piano improvisation from Sunday, based on the Taizé song “Let all who are thirsty, come.” One of the concepts that I learned from the Arnold Schoenberg book “Fundamentals of Musical Composition” was how important it is to keep the accompaniment figuration pretty much the same rather than changing from one thing to another. It contributes greatly to the unity of the piece. I may have overdone it in this one, but at least it is clear.

The photographs in the clip are from a sacred place that I was able to visit when I lived in Tennessee: the Red Clay State Park. It is located in the far southeast corner of the state near the borders with Alabama and Georgia, and it was the capital (if there was such a thing) of the Cherokee Nation, the place where they held their councils. It was here that they learned from the U.S. Government that they would be removed to what is now Oklahoma so that their lands could be taken by white settlers, and their hills dug up for gold and gemstones. And it was from here that they departed on the Trail of Tears.

In my opinion, the best response to this injustice came from the Honorable David Crockett, congressman from Tennessee. He fought Andrew Jackson and public opinion every step of the way on the Indian Removal Act, and when it was all over, he lost his seat because his views were so unpopular with the voters. When he got back to Tennessee, he said:

I told the people of my district that I would serve them as faithfully as I had done; but if not, they might go to hell, and I would go to Texas.

And so he did, famously meeting his end at the Alamo in 1836. One eyewitness account (from Ben, a slave) was that his body was surrounded by “no less than sixteen Mexican corpses.”


But the spring at Red Clay remains, and to this day it is palpably sacred, what some would call a “thin place” where one can more readily sense the Holy. There is a sense in which such a place is a sign of the springs of living water of which Our Lord spoke in the sixth chapter of St. John.

Let all who are thirsty come,
Let all who wish receive the water of life freely.
Amen, come, Lord Jesus.
(Taizé song, based on Scriptural texts)